MAN LOSES MEMORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 30

MAN LOSES MEMORY

EXTRAORDINARY CASE IN LONDON BROUGHT INTO COURT A remarkable story of lost memory was told at Marylebone Police Court, London, recently, by a young man who was arrested In Regent Street with a glass-cutter and a number of keys in his possession. At a previous hearing he said he could not give his name and address and he was suffering from loss of memory, and he was remanded for a medical examination, Later, however, he gave his name as Frederick Stickells, 31, and described himself as a farmer, of Ware Farm, Canterbury, Kent. In reply to the magistrate, a detective stated that the police did not want Stickells to go for trial. Stickells, from the dock, told an extraordinary story, “I left home,” he said, “I think it was on Tuesday morning, on my motor-bike to go to Canterbury on business. I remember going to Canterbury. I don’t remember reaching there. I don’t remember anything before I found myself in a tram and getting off the tram.”

Mr. Powell: Where did you leave you motor-cycle?—That is what T don’t know. I can't remember it for a moment.

Do you want to give me any explanation about having this glass-cutter?— Yes. At the time I could not remember. Since then I have remembered. I went up to my father’s farm and took the glass-cutter to the farm where I am, which is adjoining, to cut a piece of glass to put on a jug In my room, to keep the dust out. In the garage where I cut the glass the glass is still on the bench.

What about these keys?—l recognise them now. One of them belongs to my bureau. Two of them belong to fowl houses. One belongs to a store on the farm and one belongs to the feeding house.

Gerald Stickells, a brother, of Great Knell Farm, Ash, Canterbury, went into the witness-box and bore out his brother’s statement. Mr. Powell: According to him he has had a most strange lapse of memory. Have you ever known him suffer from that kind of thing before? -—No, not in the ordinary case; only in the case of illness. Mr. Stickells then examined the glass-cutter, and said he thought he recognised It as one they had had on the farm for many years. “I have phoned home,” he added, “and they find that it is missing.” Mr. Powell: At first sight it looked as though this man was loitering with intent to cut windows or something of that kind, especially as he had on him a glass-cutter; but It appears to be a genuine case of loss of memory. He had merely lost his way. and in these circumstances he will be discharged.